Industry Shivers at Ban on CFC Refrigerants : Environment: An end to production of the ozone-eroding chemicals next year is forcing a costly transformation on American businesses.

As governments around the world intensify their war on chemicals that weaken the Earth’s vital ozone layer, people like Ron Ford are becoming part of the collateral damage.

Ford owns an automotive air-conditioning business in Granada Hills that depends on Freon, an ozone-eroding gas widely used as a refrigerant. With the federal government poised to ban production of Freon next year, its price has skyrocketed--and that is costing Ford.

“Customers can’t afford it,” he said. “Business is way off. And the average customer gets upset at us first, not the government.”

Ford is hardly alone in his complaints. Around the nation, the drive to flush Freon and other ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons out of American cars, homes and factories is forcing a costly, and historic, transformation on consumers and industry.

With CFC prices soaring and government imposing new regulations, consumers face higher costs to service their cars and home air conditioners. Reports of CFC smuggling have surfaced. And some industries are converting to a CFC alternative that does no harm to the ozone layer but is a potent contributor to global warming.

Meanwhile, a small but vocal band of “anti-environmentalists” has launched a counteroffensive in Op-Ed pages and magazine columns, arguing that the adverse impact of CFCs has been overstated.

The objects of all this hubbub were once viewed as among the most useful and versatile compounds ever made. CFCs were found in thousands of consumer products and industrial processes, from aerosol sprays to sterilizing agents for medical instruments. They were best-known to consumers as coolants in air conditioners and refrigerators.

But by the late 1980s, CFCs had become widely viewed as environmental villains as more and more scientists concluded that the chemicals were behind an alarming thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer.

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Experts worried that a weakened ozone shield would allow more dangerous ultraviolet radiation to seep through to the Earth’s surface, setting the stage for devastating increases in skin cancer and blindness, crop failures and disruptions of the marine food chain.

“The ozone loss over Antarctica has been spectacular,” F. Sherwood Rowland, a UC Irvine chemistry professor, said recently. Rowland co-wrote the landmark 1974 study theorizing that CFCs were the culprits behind ozone depletion.

“We don’t want that to happen in the Northern Hemisphere. To avoid anything like that happening, we have to have a total ban on chlorofluorocarbons.”

In an extraordinary show of international cooperation, more than 20 nations in 1987 signed the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer, which sets deadlines for stopping production of CFCs and similar chemicals. More than 130 nations have now signed the accord. In the United States, CFC production must stop by Dec. 31, 1995.

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Prodded by the Montreal treaty and the coming federal ban, U.S. industry is retooling on a large scale. And there have been some striking successes as businesses scramble to rid themselves of CFCs and convert to less environmentally damaging substitutes.

Makers of foam boxes for hamburgers and other fast foods now use materials with no ozone-ruining agents. Electronics firms and other high-tech manufacturers eliminated CFC-based solvents, switching to cleaning processes that rely on water or citrus compounds.

Rocketdyne, the Canoga Park-based aerospace and defense contractor that formerly used CFCs to wash metal parts, now employs a water-vibration technique used for years in ultrasonic denture cleaners. Some manufacturers say they have actually saved money by dumping CFCs, which require more steps in the cleaning process.

As industry has begun to wean itself from the chemicals, domestic CFC production has plummeted. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, about 126,000 tons of CFCs were manufactured last year, a 62% drop from 1986. Nonetheless, ridding American industry of CFCs remains a monumental task, especially in the air-conditioning and refrigeration sectors.

CFCs still are used in more than 140 million vehicle air conditioners, 160 million home refrigerators, 5 million commercial refrigerators and 80,000 air-conditioning systems in skyscrapers and other large buildings.

For owners of that machinery, the impending CFC production ban leaves three painful choices: replace the equipment, retrofit to run on CFC alternatives or stick with CFCs and face tightening supplies and rising prices. (Although manufacturing CFCs will be outlawed, it will remain legal to use them in air conditioners and other products.)

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The EPA has estimated the cost of cleansing the United States of CFCs through the year 2075 at $45 billion. But that expense will be offset many times, the agency said, by the $32 trillion in savings in the form of reduced rates of skin cancer, crop damage and other problems.

So far, the costs of industrial conversion have been largely absorbed by business. But with the federal ban on retail products such as Freon less than 18 months away, price jumps and the specter of shortages are beginning to hit home with consumers.

“This is where it’s coming down to the pocketbook. And that’s what people haven’t had to deal with before,” said Catherine L. Andriadis, spokeswoman for Du Pont Co., one of the world’s largest CFC producers.

Since the Montreal Protocol, Freon prices have zoomed. Six years ago, the compound sold for less than $1 a pound. But with the impending phaseout and talk of shortages, its price has leaped to $20 a pound or more. The hikes include a $4.35-per-pound federal excise tax intended to discourage consumption.

Rapid price increases have sparked reports of CFCs being smuggled into the United States from China, Russia and other countries. Also, new batches of CFCs manufactured abroad reportedly are being contaminated so they look recycled, thus avoiding federal import quotas.

“We don’t have any direct evidence . . . but our sense is that (smuggled and illegally imported CFCs represent) a fairly significant amount that may add up to millions or hundreds of thousands of pounds,” said James Harris, a spokesman for Allied-Signal Inc., a large CFC manufacturer.

“We have customers who get offers from importers for truckloads of this material,” he said. The EPA, Customs Service and Internal Revenue Service are investigating reports of CFC smuggling, an EPA spokesman said.

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Anticipating possible shortages, many car makers and other firms are stockpiling large amounts of CFCs. In an effort to head off supply problems, the Clinton Administration last year persuaded Du Pont to keep making CFCs through 1995, even though the firm had planned to halt production at the end of this year.

U.S. consumers are most likely to feel rising refrigerant prices when they get their car or home air conditioners serviced. While most new cars use a CFC substitute, 90 million autos with CFC-filled air conditioners will remain on American roads after the production ban takes effect, according to the EPA.

Ford, who owns Acme Auto Air Conditioning of the West Inc., in Granada Hills, said that with recent Freon price increases, he is charging more than $100 to refill older air-conditioning units--a service that not long ago cost $40. If CFC prices climb higher, his rates will have to follow, he said.

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Older cars can be retrofitted to accept CFC alternatives, but doing so costs up to $800, according to the EPA. Car makers have not yet issued retrofit guidelines for most models, and many service technicians recommend against it, saying older-model air conditioners work better with Freon.

The situation may be even more unsettled among owners of high-rises and other big buildings with air-conditioning systems that often require several thousand pounds of CFCs. So far, owners of only about 25% of the country’s 80,000 large air conditioners have converted or replaced them, said Ed Dooley, spokesman for the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute.

Industry officials said property owners have reacted sluggishly because they think the EPA will back down on the ban at the last minute or that a “drop-in” replacement for CFC refrigerants will be invented, eliminating the need to convert or replace equipment.

Most residential air conditioners run on HCFC-22, a compound that is not as damaging to the ozone layer as CFCs but that is scheduled to be banned in 2010. Although supplies of that coolant remain adequate, costs of servicing home units are rising, driven by federal rules that require repair technicians to recycle HCFC-22 rather than vent it into the open air.

To pass along the costs of expensive gas-recovery equipment, many service technicians have tacked recycling fees on to their regular maintenance charges. In Los Angeles, such fees often range from $95 to $175.

Many air-conditioning business owners said that despite the prospect of heavy federal fines for illegal venting of ozone-wrecking gases, fly-by-night repair workers routinely do so.

“They can’t afford to buy that (recycling) equipment, nor do they,” said Marvin Hendler, president of Air Comfort of California, a small Van Nuys home air-conditioning firm that has shelled out $40,000 for recycling machines. “They get on top of the building and they cut the lines and all the (gases) go into the atmosphere.”

Even with the federal ban on CFCs and strict requirements for recycling, significant leakage of ozone-damaging chemicals will continue, experts said.

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“There’s still going to be leaks from different sectors, just because of the nature of the equipment,” said Steve Seidel, acting director of the EPA’s stratospheric protection division.

Moreover, environmentalists complain that U.S. industry, by switching so quickly to a leading CFC substitute known as HFC-134a, is trading one serious environmental problem for another.

HFC-134a does not erode the ozone layer, and manufacturers of autos and air conditioners have rushed to redesign their systems to accept it. Most 1994 car models contain air conditioners that use HFC-134a.

But environmentalists said HFC-134a is a potent contributor to the “greenhouse effect,” a gradual increase in Earth’s temperature caused when solar heat is trapped by atmospheric gases. Some scientists believe higher temperatures could result in catastrophic rises in sea levels, altered rain patterns and other environmental problems.

Jacques Rosas, who directs an ozone-protection campaign for the environmental group Greenpeace, said HFC-134a “is 3,200 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.” Du Pont’s Andriadis disputes that, saying new data shows that HFC-134a is only 1,200 times as potent.

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Chemical makers say that given the urgency of the situation, HFC-134a is an acceptable temporary substitute for CFCs despite its adverse side effects--a view shared by some environmentalists. Although the chemical industry says it has spent tens of millions of research dollars, it has yet to come up with a “silver bullet” substitute that would require no retrofitting.

While environmentalists and manufacturers debate HFC-134a technology, critics argue that the threat to the ozone layer is largely a myth created by shaky science and environmentalist hysteria--and that the ban is unnecessary.

In a recent article in Business Week, one such activist said measurements show that less, not more, ultraviolet radiation is reaching the Earth and that in any event, malignant melanoma is caused by a type of UV radiation that is not blocked by ozone.

“Whatever the true story turns out to be eventually, propaganda has prevailed over scientific fact up until now, and a government policy that is going to impose undue hardship on us all has run far in advance of the evidence,” wrote Paul Craig Roberts, chairman of the Institute for Political Economy.

Seidel and others dismiss such critics, saying there is little question that ozone levels have dropped and the CFC ban is necessary. An international panel of 150 atmospheric scientists recently reaffirmed the need for a ban, he said.

“Because of actions taken under the Montreal Protocol, the worst fears of millions and millions of skin cancers are never going to be realized,” he said. “Ozone depletion would be higher if there’d been no action.”

But the economic disruptions caused by laws aimed at controlling CFCs are likely to give critics a platform as the government struggles to enforce the phaseout.

“People are really in the process of conversion, and conversion is going to cost a lot of money,” said Rowland, the UC Irvine professor. “Most of these people aren’t necessarily all that enthralled with science anyway.”

How the Ban on CFCs Affects Consumers

VEHICLE AIR CONDITIONERS:

If you own a car or truck made before last year, odds are that its air-conditioning system runs on a CFC refrigerant.

That means you will be paying more to refill the coolant, which can leak out. Although it will still be legal to use CFCs after the 1996 ban on production, their cost is likely to rise steeply as supplies dwindle. While many Los Angeles-area garages charged $30 to $40 to refill an older air conditioner three or four years ago, some now charge $100 or more.

If you want to get CFCs out of your system now, you can retrofit your unit to run on a non-CFC substitute (a common one is HFC-134a). But such conversions cost between $100 and $800, according to the EPA (although many mechanics say the government figures are too high).

Many service technicians do not recommend retrofits, saying modified systems do not work as well as the original CFC-cooled systems.

“The whole thing is new,” said Sam Adler, owner of A & P Automotive in Van Nuys. “Nobody knows how the 134 is going to work with the new components.”

If you own a 1994 model car or truck, you don’t have to worry about CFCs. Virtually all new vehicles contain substitutes.

HOME AIR CONDITIONERS:

If your home has an air-conditioning unit, you will be paying more to have it serviced--but not because of CFCs.

Most residential air conditioners use the refrigerant HCFC-22, a compound that can damage the ozone layer but not nearly as badly as CFCs are believed to. Nonetheless, HCFC-22 is considered enough of an environmental threat that its production will be halted in stages, with a complete phaseout by 2030.

So why are your servicing costs higher? Since 1992, the EPA has required repair workers to recycle HCFC-22 gas whenever home units are disassembled. Many service firms pass along the cost of recycling machinery by charging customers a recycling fee, which may range from $95 to $175, in addition to regular maintenance charges.

You’ll also have to shell out more for the HCFC-22 refrigerant. A pound now costs from $8 to $15, up from about $6 or less a few years ago. The price rise is mostly driven by a federal storage tax designed to discourage use of the compound. Home air-conditioning units typically require about eight pounds.